Home for Christmas (34 page)

As for his cousin Robert, well, he would have to marry elsewhere.

Gleefully, he ripped the letter in half once then in half again before consigning the remains to the wastepaper bin.

Relieved that her mission had seemed to go quite well and that she’d left Major Dartmouth’s office without him pouncing on her, Agnes whistled as she made her way home.

The smell of freshly baked bread and cakes wafted out from Pringles Bakery even before she got to it. The enticing aroma drew her in.

She bought cream slices for everybody, plus a fresh loaf.

Worried faces turned to her as she bounced into the kitchen and placed her purchases on the table.

She looked from her mother to her grandmother. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘They sent a messenger,’ said her grandmother, her wrinkled hands clasped tightly together in her ample lap.

‘You’re to report for duty tomorrow morning. They brought your uniform. It looks a likely fit. And we’ve packed your bags. They didn’t tell us where you were going; only that it was abroad driving an ambulance.’

Agnes eyed her mother’s taut expression. She was trying to be brave, trying not to let the mistiness in her eyes roll down her cheeks.

‘Well, that’s that then,’ Agnes pronounced brightly. ‘Time for a party. Cream slices all round!’

She knew there was no real party spirit in the occasion, but this might be the last time she would see her family for a very long time.

Strangely enough, she felt no fear. She didn’t even feel sad about leaving home. War was a terrible thing, but she viewed her part in it as an adventure, akin to her childish exploits of driving a car, and her desire to go up in Robert’s aeroplane, and sailing a dinghy on the lake at Heathlands.

It would be dangerous, but on the plus side, she’d be beyond the reach of Sylvester Dartmouth, and that, she decided, was a definite plus!

If he kept to his promise, the letter to Robert was already winging its way across the English Channel. Soon she would be there too.

As for Lydia, Agnes sighed. She was envious that Lydia had already left for the continent and wondered how she was getting on.

Lydia retched but managed to keep her breakfast down. She felt guilty lying to Agnes, telling her that she was off to Flanders right away. Before she left, she had to deal with the small problem Robert had left her with; she was going to have a baby.

Under the circumstances, it was unfair to tell Robert. The war would take every ounce of concentration he could muster. Neither could she allow such a situation to prevent her from going to Flanders. The timing was all wrong! A war was far from being the best time to give birth.

She’d left a forwarding address with Agnes for when a letter came from Robert. Only once he’d responded, she would know for sure that he still wanted her. In the meantime, she had to do something about the pregnancy. The Red Cross would not take her if they knew, and neither would anyone else for that matter. But she had to go to Flanders. She had to do something towards the war effort and the possibility of bringing everyone home by Christmas.

On leaving the house, Lydia took deep breaths of sweet morning air freshened by overnight rain. Her gaze swept over drops of dew spangling on spiders’ webs.

The fresh air smell and the dew were favourite things that usually made her sigh with happiness, like lucky talismans to make her feel better. Today these things did not lift her heart.

She was now in the same predicament as Edith Allen had found herself in. Terminating a pregnancy was not an easy option; nobody could really understand what it took to do such a thing until they were in the same position themselves. It wasn’t easy. Not easy at all.

If only Robert would get in touch; she was sure everything would be all right then. She still believed that despite the war they would marry. This was all so ridiculous; her father had been much respected before the war, and now he was finding his position difficult, though not all his patients had deserted him.

She sighed as she made her way to the hospital to collect a few things she’d left in her room.

A mob had gathered outside the hospital, ranged across the entrance. Her heart raced so fast she could almost believe she could hear her blood pumping through her veins.

One of those assembled, a man wearing a dark felt hat that shaded his swarthy features, turned round and saw her. He said something she could not quite hear or understand. It sounded like Russian. The crowd parted, a dozen or more hollow, half-starved faces turning in her direction.

‘Good morning. Nurse Miller, is it not?’ The man now spoke in English.

Lydia recognised the man as the father of a small boy who had been brought in suffering from diphtheria. She recalled tending to the boy, which was why the man knew her name.

Her pulse slowed, though she was still puzzled. ‘Has something happened?’

‘We heard a rumour a mob was on its way to cause trouble. The hospital is important to us. We came to defend it.’

A huge surge of gratitude swept over her. The madness of war had not taken hold of everyone.

The few things she’d left at the hospital didn’t take too long to pack, though the task seemed to tire her far more than it should. The small suitcase also seemed heavier and wearied her arms.

Sister Gerda, one of the German deaconesses in charge at the hospital, had remained in England, determined to carry on doing her duty despite everything. She took Lydia’s hand in both of hers as they tearfully wished each other goodbye.

‘Let us pray this madness will soon be over,’ murmured Sister Gerda.

And I used to think she was so formidable, thought Lydia.

Once her hand was released, she brushed it across her forehead.

Sister Gerda frowned. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.

Lydia nodded. ‘Just a little tired I think. It must be all the excitement, and perhaps something I ate.’

That night she took some strong laxatives and had a bath, the water so hot it turned her skin lobster pink. If this didn’t work she would have to seek a termination. But she would go to France first. She was determined she would. The next day she left for Flanders. She also bled. On the one hand, she was elated; her little problem had come to nothing without any intervention on her part. On the other hand, the one thing that had bound her to Robert was gone. A feeling of emptiness came with it.

Lydia. Belgium, September, 1914

The air was still warm with summer heat and the crossing from England to the Hook of Holland had been calm.

The ferry was crowded with worried-looking people who had been strangely silent, either that or the throb of the ship’s engine drowned out all other sounds. Lydia had reserved a cabin, but what with the rolling of the vessel and the green faces of fellow passengers, she stayed up on deck.

Her fellow passengers were grim faced, some because they’d left friends and family behind, some because they feared what would happen next. Some were merely seasick. Silence reigned, nobody wanting to express their fears for the future, their thoughts dark and forbidding.

She thought of her mother’s journal, the one she’d found among the Christmas decorations. The world was at war and she was caught up in it.
Now is the time to note down what I can of my experiences
. There was no room to do that on the boat, and besides, the journal was buried deep in her suitcase.

But when I get there, that is when I shall begin
.

The crowded train to Brussels was noisier, full of families racing home to France, Luxembourg or those towns in Belgium that had not yet fallen to the enemy.

Home, they’re all trying to get home, she thought. Except me.

Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of the blood she’d shed, the first for six weeks or so. If it hadn’t been for this war, she and Robert would have married and perhaps the child might have survived. All this worry, all this rushing around contributed to losing it. That’s what she told herself, though in all honesty she couldn’t know for sure.

All the same she couldn’t help wondering what it might have looked like; whether it would have her grey eyes, his cleft chin, small hands or large, a determined wail in its demand for attention.

It.

Would
it
have been a boy or a girl?

She resolved not to continue torturing herself, but the other Lydia, the one who felt so much for other people, decided she deserved it. Think of the future, she said to herself. Think of the good you will be doing, tending the injured brought up from the battlefields. Your duty is now to them.

Joining the Red Cross was a good idea, she told herself. The hospital was currently in an area still under Belgian control. Being a neutral concern it treated all nationalities, no matter which side they were fighting on.

They were to work and lodge in a splendid chateau especially bequeathed by wealthy patrons. It stood in its own grounds, surrounded by grass, gardens and plane trees with big leaves and widely spreading branches. It reminded her of Heathlands.

She was one of the first to arrive and look around the room she was to share with two other nurses. It was bright and airy and had once been a nursery. The walls were lemon and white. A handsome writing bureau stood near the window, a chair of blue brocade pushed up in front of it.

She looked at the bureau as she might an old friend; it was similar to her bureau at home. It occurred to her that it might have the same secret compartment, and if so …

She bit her lip. The photograph of her mother and the journal nestled amongst her clothes. The suitcase clasps snapped open, one after the other. Both the items she wanted were bound together inside a cotton nightdress. Before getting them out, she went to the bureau. The pattern inside was different, but familiarity with her own bureau made her feel carefully for one pattern standing a little prouder of the marquetry than the others.

A sharp ‘click’ and the secret drawer opened.

Seeing as there was nobody around to be upset at the sight of the photograph of her mother, she placed it on top of the bureau. It was possible that the writing desk would be used by her roommates, too, and she didn’t want them reading the first few words that she’d written on the boat coming across from England. In the days that followed, she met Fleur, a Belgian nurse, and Esther, a tall blonde American. Both had brought photographs of their families and Lydia felt quite proud to show off the portrait of her mother; both girls commented on the likeness between Lydia and her mother.

Fleur had also brought a photograph of her fiancé, a French soldier who had donned the bright blue jacket of the Republican army and marched off to war.

All three girls agreed that they were lucky to have such a luxurious billet. Lydia commented to a fellow nurse that the chateau that filled her eyes looked far too grand to be a hospital.

‘Imagine the balls they must once have had here, the ladies’ dresses, the handsome men in tailcoats or military uniforms. And here we are about to turn it all upside down. What a great shame, I mean it isn’t as though the soldiers will appreciate such a wonderful place.’

Her comment was overheard.

‘A man in pain doesn’t care where he is. He could be in a cow shed as long as there is someone there to ease his pain.’ The speaker was a tall man with weary eyes and stooped shoulders, obviously a doctor.

‘This way,’ shouted the matron in charge, a tall woman with a kind face, a cottage bun hair style and the soft caring eyes of the nun she had once been.

The nurses trooped in after her, all amazed on seeing the beautiful interior of carved plasterwork, wall paintings and stained gaps where oil portraits used to hang.

‘This is so lovely. Fancy turning it into a hospital,’ said Fleur.

‘Hopefully it won’t be for long,’ said Lydia. ‘Hopefully the war will be over by Christmas.’

Fleur had soft brown eyes and full lips and looked as though she had plenty to say.

‘I wish I could be sure. Pierre, my sweetheart, is serving somewhere between here and the coast.’

‘We have to believe it will be over by Christmas. Nobody in their right mind would want this situation to go on for years,’ declared Lydia.

The next week consisted of setting up beds in gracious rooms with walls of silken wallpapers and curtains scattered with peacocks in shades of turquoise, blue and dark green.

A smattering of injured men came in, a small trickle, the result of sorties rather than mass advances.

‘The enemy are to our right and the Allies to our left,’ explained a doctor with a balding pate and jet-black eyes. ‘As long as they both go around us when they head for the town of Ypres, we should be all right.’

Loaded up with linen sheets, Lydia came across removal men carrying the last of the lovely furniture from the house. Its replacements were iron-framed beds, trolleys used for holding surgical instruments, and glass-fronted medicine cupboards fitted with stout locks.

She had heard from one of the cooks that the chateau belonged to an Italian count. Greta had worked for them and would now work for the Red Cross managing the hospital.

Lydia had commented that she was very brave to do that; after all, as a civilian, she could opt to get out, away from the front.

‘Someone has to stand their ground,’ Greta had declared, waving her arms around as though she were the last line of defence against the enemy.

Just three weeks after their arrival there was bad news. The British Expeditionary Force was desperate to seize and maintain a corridor through Flanders to the sea. The Germans were just as desperate to close it, thus cutting off the British supply line. Ypres was in the firing line.

The Red Cross post gained new neighbours, a precursor to a planned battle rumoured to take place around Ypres.

The Germans marched in, setting out their headquarters on the upper floors of the chateau. To their credit, they transferred a number of their army doctors to the hospital and agreed that they would come under the jurisdiction of the Red Cross superintendent.